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Sunday, 22 February 2015

Cathi O'Neill, all the way from stunningly picturesque Ireland.
I am sure you will agree her page is just beautiful - so soft yet full of life, a really lovely layout.

Hi! My name
is Cathi O'Neill, and I am an American who married an Irishman and I have been
living in Ireland since 1997. I live in a beautiful village on the Shannon River
with my DH of 19 years (wow, that makes me feel old!) and my two beautiful
daughters, Aine (onya) 12 and Aisling (ashling) 10 who are the subject of many
of my projects!!

I have always loved crafting since I was a little girl. My grandmother
taught me to knit and crochet and I remember sewing Barbie doll clothes with her
on her front porch! I am a knitter and quilter as well, but have recently in the
last two years found cardmaking and scrapbooking, and an obsession was born!! I
truly love creating and make vintage cards to sell here in our local village
cafe as well as stacks of mixed media and shabby/vintage style layouts of my
girls to keep and share with family! I also love to do tags, ATC and altered
projects, barely a day goes by when I haven't done something crafty!!

I am currently on the design teams for Riddersholm Designs, La-La Land
Crafts and challenge blog Berry71Bleu and have guest designed and designed for
many wonderful companies and challenge blogs, I have been very blessed.

Sunday, 15 February 2015

Another month flashing past! I can't quite believe it is the 15th again and time for more delightful inspiration from our design team using this wonderful inspiration by Josh Miels for our colour challenge this month.

It is such a gorgeous inspiration picture this month and I fell in love with the
colour palette. Even on the photo (of my DD and her friend at their year 7 prom)
I altered the colours to fit in with the inspiration picture.

We would love
to see an altered or up cycled project from you for our challenge, and you
have got 2 more weeks to play along :)

Last year my In-Laws renewed
their wedding vows to celebrate their 50th anniversary. The colour theme was
lavender, blue and pink so the colour scheme for this challenge matched in
perfectly. And I loved the flowers, I always love flowers! This photo of me and
my eldest daughter is one I have been looking forward to scrapping and thought a
subtle version of the colours would highlight the fun, loving, family day that
we had together.

Not my normal colour palette, but I love the soft feminine hues. I used flowers in my layout to create a look similar to the feminine look in the painting. Also, the face in the painting is very strong so I chose a close-up head shot for my layout. There’s a lot going on in the painting with the colour blending and pronounced brush strokes and I have tried to create this sort of depth on my page with layering. I created the back ground with water colour paint, Gelatos and Gesso. I used stencilling, die cuts, chipboard and flowers to build the layers.

The colour palette was so inspirational this month. I loved the tones used
as well as the portrait. From the inspiration artwork I have used the colours,
a portrait and the flower theme to make the first page of a mini album. This has
been made from canvas, painted with acrylic paint and stamped. I've also added
chain stitch, button flowers, as well as chipboard butterflies, painted with
Liquid Pearls to the mix.

I just loved the colours on this challenge! I used a lot of different
mists, gesso and stamps to create the background around the photo, then I
decorated with flowers, chipboard and metal embellishments.

Now it is your turn, we'd love to see what you can do ...

Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions. All we ask is that you create a new entry for our challenge and you are most welcome to combine with another sketch and/or colour challenge if you wish. We offer two prizes determined by team vote and one other prize purely chosen by random draw - so anyone can be a winner regardless of style or level of experience. You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Please pop back on the 22nd for our delightful guest designer this month, Cathi O'Neill.

Sunday, 8 February 2015

I will be announcing our January winners shortly but first I would like to introduce you to the second edition of Tips, Tricks and Techniques for 2015 presented by our wonderfully talented and super creative team member, Lizzy Hill.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hey there, fellow paper enthusiasts! It's my turn to share with you a little something on our ARTastic blog today. So, in the spirit of recycling, I thought I'd show you some cards where I've used up PACKAGING.

And we all know scrappy supplies often come in some pretty darn nice packaging!

All these cards were created for 2014 past challenges!

Get out those die cuts! Packaging makes a good base for a cluster.

Then...

The same shape has been used on the card below - but for a totally different effect.

And those stripe-y circles?

Punched out of the cover sheet from a pack of patterned papers!

Or how about stamping on the packaging, as well as using it to back off your feature element?

I pretty much used the entire sheet from behind these goodies!

Notice the little stripe was already on the top of the packaging? BONUS.

Looked neat inside the frame I created!

If your packaging is 'shiny', then you'll need to use either STAZ ON or ink such as RANGER ARCHIVAL, so that it doesn't smudge:)

Soooo....HESITATE & HOLD onto that packaging before you toss it in the bin! What possibilities does it have????!!!!

Just wonderful Lizzy! I am not sure I will look at packaging in quite the same light again!

and now onto some January winners .....We were absolutely bowled over by the fantastic pages submitted last month - thank you everyone for playing along with us, you really are all winners in our eyes.

In January we were working from this street art painting by Fintan Magee.

Sunday, 1 February 2015

We have been bowled over by the wonderful, beautiful and inspirational entries from last month - thank you one and all - you have made our month.
We hope you like the inspiration piece we have for you in February, I am sure you will ;)
Introducing Muggles by Josh Miels and yes you guessed it, the challenge this month is a colour one.

A little about Josh Miels ...

Joshua Miels is a contemporary portrait artist who looks to capture the vulnerability of people and the emotions that people try to hind from others. Spending countless hours adding layer upon layer of paint Joshua produces artworks that are not only striking but deep and powerful. Painted with predominantly oil paint, each piece start off with a subject, but with a large amount of experimentation, each art piece has its own journey on how its get from start to finish. The Artworks challenges viewers to draw upon there own emotions and personal experiences. How each piece is interpreted differs from person to person, there is no right or wrong way to interprets these artworks.

http://joshuamiels.com/

This year we will have two main prize packs, one from Mystical Scrapbooks and the other from Flourish with a Bling - these winners will be selected by Creative Team vote and by myself. Each month we will also have another prize pack donated by one of our team where the winner is selected purely by random draw - so anyone could be a winner, no matter your style or your level of experience. All these prizes will be available to anyone, no matter your country of residence.

Along with following the colour palette, I was inspired by the beauty and
softness I saw in the artwork. Using a wash for the background colours, I tried
to create this softness. MARY

I was influenced by the big flowers and the swirls in the ladies face. I have used texture paste to create swirls and added glitz and glitter. I also felt the painting is quite dramatic, which I tried to reflect in the layout. I was influenced by the colours which I felt were dramatic as well.

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on February 28th, 2015. We'd love to see yournewpaper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries. Please no back-dated submissions.

You may combine our challenge with a sketch and a product/technique challenge (so two additional challenges). Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as provide a link back to us at ARTastic ... and don't forget to tell us how you were inspired by our challenge.

You may enter more than once in any month as long as each submission is with a different creation. International entries are very welcome.

Please pop back on the 8th for The ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you this month by our super talented and mega creative team member, Lizzy Hill.

Our January winners will also be announced at this time and believe me, it is going to be incredibly difficult to select our winners - thank goodness for random draw :)

February random draw prize

2nd random draw prize

JANUARY inspiration is Beach Scene by Arthur Streeton

JANUARY entries

JANUARY Prize

JANUARY second prize - if more than 8 entries

Donated by Karen McLaughlin

December 2nd random draw prize

If more than 8 entries

NO WORD VERIFICATION please

Our Creative Team love to leave comments on each and every entry, so please make it easier for them to do so and remove WORD VERIFICATION for your comments. If you choose to use specialist galleries please be aware we may not be able to leave comments for you.

ARTastic is a challenge blog with a difference. We find inspiration in works of art.THE RULES - You don't need to be arty to play along with us - we accept traditional paper, digital, mixed media and off the page creations at any level. International entries are welcome. You may combine with other challenges. Please include our inspirational artwork and a link back to ARTastic on your entry and tell us how you were inspired by our artwork.